After welcoming the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, the executive is now concerned about the presence of jihadists, particularly French, on Syrian soil and the risk of exporting this threat. More than a hundred are believed to be present in the country, but due to the current fragile situation, it is difficult to have exact data on them.
“We have security interests in the region, people who are not without representing a certain danger,” French President Emmanuel Macron underlined last Tuesday. We must “avoid the resurgence of terrorist movements which could have the capacity to destabilize regionally and prepare planned attacks,” he added.
How many fighters released from prison?
Since their capture of Damascus, Syrian rebels and jihadists have released detainees from prisons. Among them, French jihadists. According to our information, half a dozen nationals, including minors, have been released from regime jails in recent days. But there is no indication yet that they were sent to France.
In the north-east of the country, French Daesh jihadists are also present in prison camps, run by the Kurds, which could be targeted in the coming weeks by rebel troops. According to the resigning Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, to franceinfo, “more than 70” men are currently imprisoned there. From the same source, around fifty women and 120 children are also locked up in camps.
Speaking to Le Figaro, Olivier Christen, national anti-terrorism prosecutor, estimates that there are “150 (French) detainees or held in the Syrian North-East and in Iraq but also 300 missing”. It is very difficult to know at the moment whether they are dead or at large, in Syria or elsewhere. “We counted, also present in Idlib, around thirty women who escaped from the camps or who took refuge there with the debacle of the Islamic State,” he adds.
And how many in all in Syria?
In all, around 200 French fighters are listed in Syria, Me Samia Maktouf, lawyer for victims of attacks, told RMC. At least ten French jihadists have been identified in the troops of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTC), the Islamist group which carried out the attacks in Syria, franceinfo said on Tuesday. But among them, it is difficult to know which ones participated in the fighting in recent days in the country.
In all, “we estimate the number of French nationals who were present in the Idlib pocket at around a hundred”, where the attacks originated, reports Olivier Christen. “In detail, around fifty belong to Omar Omsen's brigade and around thirty” to HTC, continues the national anti-terrorism prosecutor.
A threat to France?
The name of Omar Omsen circulates among the names of French people who are present on Syrian soil. He “was, since 2013, the largest recruiter of French jihadists. He is free today because he made an agreement with HTC, declares Me Samia Maktouf, he would present a certain threat to our security because we do not know where he is. »
The current figures on French jihadists should be taken with caution because little verified information comes from Syria, in a context that is still very unstable. “We remain vigilant but we have no alarming signs of threat,” declared a security source to Le Parisien. They are not recruited to reinforce combatant troops. »
